JERUSALEM  The United Nations envoy to the Middle East acknowledged in an interview with McClatchy Sunday that he has maintained quiet contacts with the Islamist group Hamas for years, despite the international communitys official policy to isolate the group.

Robert Serry described his offices contacts with Hamas, which has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007, as quiet engagements and said his office was working now, in the wake of a cease-fire agreement that ended eight days of Israeli bombardment of Gaza, hoping to help the parties get to a more durable solution.

Because we are on the ground we have our informal contacts with Hamas. How could we not? he said. We also have our quiet engagements with Hamas to work for a calm. In the last years I have been working to pass on messages to Hamas.

Serry, a career Dutch diplomat who serves as the U.N. envoy to the Palestinian Authority, visited the Gaza Strip and southern Israel this weekend to survey the damage from the latest round of hostilities between Israel and militants in Gaza. At least 163 Palestinians and six Israelis were killed in the violence, which included aerial and naval bombardment of Gaza by the Israelis and the targeting of Israeli cities by Gaza militants firing hundreds of rockets.

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